


destiny, unwavering and ineffable

by sylveondreams



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fate & Destiny, M/M, No Dialogue, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 05:58:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19289578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylveondreams/pseuds/sylveondreams
Summary: The angel assumes that when he reaches down with a hand instead of the flaming blade, it's his own choice.Perhaps it is.But it's all a part of the Ineffable Plan.





	destiny, unwavering and ineffable

In the beginning- no, not in the beginning, in The Beginning, before time itself had been created, there was a war in Heaven. Because time hadn't been created yet, the war stretched forever, and it happened all at once, a clamor of angelic bodies and weapons against each other in an eternal instant. The instant ended with a Fall, angels cast down from Heaven for fulfilling their purpose. Their purpose, whispered to them in the moment of their creation, was to rebel, to fall, for without the infernal forces there could be no heavenly. The instant was preceded by the first Creation, a soundless voice whispering into nothing to form ethereal beings from only Their Word. And what a shame that some of those Words would only be used during a short eternity of rebellion and battle.

Perhaps it would do good for this story to focus on individuals. It is difficult for the human mind to imagine either this timeless time or the true nature of angels, so for the sake of the human reader, this account of the time before time will feature only a small number of events placed in an order, and the ethereal bodies will be viewed through a lens that cuts them down to only one form: the shape that would later be applied to the human race because God liked it so much.

In this moment, there are two angels. One holds a flaming sword, and the other sits behind a low wall, his knees pulled up to his chest. They are on opposite sides. The forehead of the angel behind the wall smoulders with an invisible brand. He is marked, but not for anything he intended to do. He hung around with the wrong people and asked a few too many questions.

Besides, he was destined to Fall. The smouldering brand was placed, metaphorically, before the Word even formed him.

The angel with the sword can see the other. The brand makes him hard to miss. But he hesitates. To disobey orders would place the brand on his head in turn. But this sword wasn't destined to sever an angel's wings from his body. He doesn't know this, of course, and so he assumes that when he reaches down with a hand instead of the flaming blade, it's his own choice.

Perhaps it is.

But it's all a part of the Ineffable Plan.

Everything has a purpose, and this sword's purpose will lead it to first draw blood in lower places than Heaven. And the angel who now wields it has his own purpose, which is to join hands with the branded one and help him to his feet.

Eyes stare into eyes, and in their diverse forms, more eyes stare into more eyes, but we aren't looking at those.

Even so, the angel can't bear to have the brand put on his forehead, too, so he can't leave the other angel alone. What he does, what he must do, is plunge his sword into the ground, opening a rift in Heaven underneath the branded angel.

A small mercy: this is the one angel cast from Heaven still able to slow his descent with outstretched wings in the void.

He looks upward, at the receding angel with the flaming sword staring back down at him, and wonders at this mercy. What is he, Falling with wings outstretched?

 

When time is created, everything before time becomes hazy. It's hard to reconcile these two states of being even in the minds of creatures so miraculous as angels, so They blur the war and everything before in Their creations' memories until it's nothing but a vague haze of Happenings. In this time, the short limbo between the Fall and Eden, the Fallen dust themselves off, learn what the scorching void on the way down has made them, and give themselves names less holy that won't burn their branded souls.

Demons. That's what their king had called them, even above, and they took to it.

One demon is nudged above with an inkling of purpose, his scaly body breaking through the verdant ground to introduce Original Sin to the innocent humans in the garden.

Nearby is an angel with a flaming sword. He sees the serpent slither into the tree, but he doesn't strike. After all, the Word created serpents, too.

Serpents have a purpose.

It's all part of the Plan.

Afterwards, as the demon and the angel stand on the wall and the first storm begins to let down rain, the angel wonders if maybe the first creature slain by the flaming sword should have been the one that stands beside him, intact wings curving from his back. But he wonders only for a moment. After all, if it hadn't happened, it shouldn't have happened. If it hadn't happened, it was never part of the Plan.

He's right, of course, but only partly. Although he was not destined to slay the serpent, or, indeed, much else at all, if he'd chosen to, that would have been his destiny. His choice was based less on the unshakable order of events than on mercy.

Who is he to choose not to slay the originator of sin and temptation? A merciful being, of course. Unique among angels. A rank, in the eyes of the Almighty, of his own.

 

As time passes, the angel who formerly possessed a flaming sword and the demon who formerly possessed a serpentine form meet again and again. It's almost as if fate drives them together.

Well.

Since everything is destined to fulfil its own course, in a way, fate does drive them together. But not consciously. Fate is not a conscious entity, only a necessary principle of being.

But the greater fate of the world, the Plan, does drive them together.

Every time they collide, the holy fire in the angel's soul burns some of the corruption of the Fall from the demon, and the corruption dims the flames a little bit. And this is necessary for the Plan. The reluctant demon and the merciful angel, both in ranks of their own. Eventually, they must fit together, their alignments grey enough that they are no longer of Heaven or Hell, but of Earth.

Unique, together.

In the meantime, they clash. But they don't do battle, they converse. They meet again and again, and each time they speak without much hostility, without regard for the disgraceful fact that they meet at all, and even with a growing friendship.

Time advances, humans advance, and these two divinities advance, but at a much slower rate. Immortals can take that time, and most of them don't even bother. Why should they, when they are neither reluctant nor merciful? After all, there's no good starting point for other angels or demons to grey from. These two, who hold hands in a café in Paris during a revolution, began with an additional virtue each.

A flaw.

A trait of being human.

 

As the End of the World approaches, their alignments finally click together. The Almighty had planned it this way. Six thousand years after the beginning of time, the angel and the demon finally form the third side.

Heaven, Hell, and Love.

Although they don't realize it for eleven years, everything is in place. They're together, the Apocalypse advances at a stately pace, and the flaming sword the angel passed on at the beginning is about to come back to him.

It does, and then it leaves again, and the angel finds himself, having held a flaming sword for the first time in six thousand years, not missing it at all.

Besides, his right hand is occupied. Fingers, cool and smooth to the touch, hold his palm to the demon's whenever they get the chance.

The pair still wonder, in their minds, whether they did the right thing.

But they know that it's better not to try to understand the Plan, so they live their lives without much worry.

After all, it _is_ Ineffable.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr at [sylveondreams ](https://sylveondreams.tumblr.com/)


End file.
